Ensuring that your trade promotion programs meet your goals while matching or exceeding industry best practices

Our Approach to a Solution
Through our experience with hundreds of companies in a wide variety of product categories selling through every channel, we have an in-depth understanding of the entire breadth of trade channels including grocery, drug, big box, department stores, specialty, mass merchants, and others, as well as traditional dealer channels. Our deep and comprehensive knowledge of the processes and technologies that ensure success makes us the logical choice to provide rapid, precise and trustworthy intelligence to the (Client) team.

We will hold an initial conference call with you and selected members of your team to gain a first impression of your concerns, issues and problems. From that understanding, we move forward with a comprehensive plan of Discovery and Analysis. In this plan we address and solve the objectives identified in the initial conference call and/or preliminary site visit, if that is required. Typically, we conduct the following activities:

1. Discovery

Senior consultant(s) will work on site at (Client) to conduct a detailed discovery of existing programs, processes and practices. The discovery will cover how your company develops, implements, administers, measures and analyzes your trade promotion programs. The purpose of this discovery is to gain knowledge of the linkage and alignment of existing technology with processes in all aspects of the programs. We interview corporate, field and channel personnel in marketing, sales, purchasing, finance and I/T. We also conduct a full evaluation and audit of existing processes, systems and practices. This will ensure a comprehensive view of the programs from all levels, and enable a reliable evaluation of results.

Deliverable
An objective, unbiased evaluation of all programs, processes and support systems compared to competitive and non-competitive but comparable companies and to industry standards. These will include detailed process maps for each individual process covered. We will also provide a complete evaluation of current financial accounting practices to be compared with Sarbanes-Oxley and FASB regulations on trade promotion spending.

2. Analysis of Discovery

We will compile this data and produce a complete report with graphical content that can be used by (Client) executives to determine the best path to take to achieve stated goals.

Deliverable
Assessment of findings and observations, compared to industry and competitive benchmarks. It includes opportunities and defined potential ROI values for changes in programs, policies, processes and/or system technology. A key deliverable component will be a fully defined set of options for program guidelines that will drastically reduce complexity but provide needed flexibility and control.

3. Business Process Recommendation

Using the “As Is” process maps generated in the first component of the discovery, we will also develop recommended “To Be” process maps showing cost and time savings for reengineered processes required to support the program execution and administration. Finally, we will recommend specific reporting and analytical tools to help track, measure and analyze performance. This will include not only static program usage measurements, but ROI and account level profitability analyses. From this source, The Client will have a detailed set of objective, industry-leading, internal business requirements to support its objectives.

Deliverable
Defined business processes to support industry best-practice trade promotion programs and to prepare the Client for movement into best practice analytics and forecasting, along with recommendations for implementation, training and ongoing education to ensure continued utilization and growth of intelligence base.

Schedule and Pricing

Once we have a complete understanding of the mission and objectives (received from the initial conference call), we will formulate the time schedule and pricing. Generally, this project will take between 30 and 45 calendar days to complete, with approximately 4-7 working days on site at your location.

Please fill in the contact form to discuss more about pricing and scheduling this service.